Nicolas Salliou- PhD
- PostDoc Position at ETH Zurich
Nicolas Salliou
- PhD
- PostDoc Position at ETH Zurich
About
54
Publications
19,956
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
480
Citations
Introduction
My main interest as a researcher is about social change in socio-ecological systems, especially agricultural and food systems (e.g fairtrade, agroecology, climate change and vegan diet).
I favor participatory modelling approach using Agent-Based Modelling, Bayesian Network and role-playing serious games.
My current research focus on pathways to Green-blue infrastructures in Antananarivo, Madagascar -> https://fcl-tana.ethz.ch
Current institution
Additional affiliations
December 2013 - May 2017
Education
September 2003 - June 2007
Publications
Publications (54)
Given the increasing importance of public participation in urban transformation processes, serious games have emerged as a promising tool for fostering active engagement and constructive dialogue. By providing insights into opposing arguments and helping navigate complex trade-offs, serious games can support informed decision-making and promote col...
Transitioning away from livestock farming would limit the carbon footprint of humanity and reduce the pressure on water, land and biodiversity. It would also improve human health, as animal farming increases the risks of pandemics and bacterial resistance. All of these risks and opportunities make a compelling case for a transition towards plant-ba...
Coexistence with wildlife is becoming a key challenge in Europe as populations of large carnivores recover in human-dominated landscapes. Modeling the spatial distribution of conditions for human-bear coexistence can help support conservation by identifying priority areas and measures to support coexistence, but existing models often only address r...
Willy Christian Kriz, psychologist, professor of leadership and organizational development at Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences, was born in 1968 in Vienna (Austria). He started as a research assistant at the Vienna International Future Conference where he worked with Dennis Meadows. After an awarded Ph.D. in 1999 on ‘Training of system com...
Adaptation to climate change is a social–ecological process: it is not solely a result of natural processes or human decisions but emerges from multiple relations within social systems, within ecological systems and between them. We propose a novel analytical framework to evaluate social–ecological relations in nature-based adaptation, encompassing...
Black Swans have become the norm rather than the exception. These unimaginable events with massive consequences seem to be a by-product of our society dominated by complex systems. As more Black Swans are looming, an interest in becoming more resilient is rising. However, achieving resilience against Black Swans remains an ambiguous endeavour. Look...
Growing urban population and contemporary urban systems lock-in unsustainable urban development pathways, deteriorating the living quality of urban dwellers. The systemic complexity of these challenges renders it difficult to find solutions using existing planning processes. Alternatively, transformative planning processes are radical, take place o...
We would like to thank the Bingham et al for their Comment, as it provides some important nuance to our perspective (Salliou and Stritih 2023) that was partly constrained by its short format. Indeed, we agree with their comment on many points, such as the need to strengthen cross-scale connections and engage in humble planning that allows space for...
Urban landscapes face significant challenges, as they must transform towards sustainability while remaining resilient. Urban landscape transformation is a complex task for landscape designers. They must not only create new solutions for landscapes but also ensure that their proposals are capable to deliver and maintain key ecosystems services over...
Conservation and ethical consideration for animal welfare in the wild appear to be synergetic because they both care for non-human animals. However, many practices such as culling seem to achieve conservation purposes but at the cost of producing a lot of wild-animal suffering, antagonizing conservationists and animal rights advocates. To explore t...
Implementing the European Green Deal requires a consistent food systems’ policy that involves not only targeting the supply side but also conducting extensive changes in diets at the consumer level. Reducing meat consumption is an obvious strategy to put the European food system on track to meet the Green Deal’s goals. This cannot be achieved by fo...
Conservation and ethical consideration for animal welfare in the wild appear to be synergetic because they both care for non-human animals. However, many practices such as culling seem to achieve conservation purposes but at the cost of producing a lot of wild-animal suffering, antagonizing conservationists and animal rights advocates. To explore t...
Participatory simulation games are powerful tools for engaging stakeholders about complex issues, yet their development can be time-intensive and their focus context-specific, limiting their genericity, understood as the capacity of being reusable. This article identifies six strategies to enhance the genericity of participatory simulation games, i...
Le présent appel à communications s’intéresse aux approches d’évaluation mises en œuvre au cours ou après la mobilisation de jeux sérieux sur les thématiques agricoles, environnementales et alimentaires et permettant d’en mesurer les impacts potentiels et réels sur les transitions en cours. Les communications retenues seront présentées lors des 1er...
Landscape management involves tackling both systemic and social complexity: the former due to multiple interacting entities, the latter due to incommensurable knowledge and value systems of stakeholders. Current practice in landscape management makes wide use of participatory methods, which helps increase the breadth of our understanding of sustain...
Scientists increasingly cross their disciplinary boundaries and connect with local stakeholders to jointly solve complex problems. Working with stakeholders means higher legitimacy and supports practical impact of research. Games provide a tool to achieve such transdisciplinary collaboration. In this paper, we explore the use of a game in a partici...
Ecosystems support the adaptation of societies to global changes through their contributions to people's quality of life. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) implementation remains a challenge and will require changes of practices, structures and processes underpinning human and nature interactions, also considered as co-production of nature’s contrib...
Key methods discussed in this chapter:
Modelling methods: System dynamics (group model building, mediated modelling, shared vision planning), agent-based models (ARDI), role-playing games (Wat-A-Game), expert models (Bayesian networks, fuzzy cognitive maps), state-and-transition models, soft system methodologies (rich pictures, concept maps, decis...
Agent-based simulation has been extensively used to study opinion dynamics. However, the vast majority of the existing models have been limited to extremely abstract and simplified representations of the diffusion process, which impairs the realism of the simulations and disables the understanding of the reasons for the shift of an actor’s opinion....
This paper introduces a generic agent-based model simulating the exchange and the diffusion of pro and con arguments. It is applied to the case of the diffusion of vegetarian diets in the context of a potential emergence of a second nutrition transition. To this day, agent-based simulation has been extensively used to study opinion dynamics. Howeve...
Vegan diets have been gaining attention for their potential health benefits, lower environmental impact and concern for animal welfare. An increasing number of consumers transition to such diets. To understand better the transition process toward a vegan diet at an individual level, a life story approach was used to conduct 20 individual interviews...
La notion de service écosystémique peut-elle aider à repenser l'action collective et la gestion concertée des territoires? La gouvernance des services écosystémiques est souvent pensée en termes de paiements fondés sur des approches marchandes ou des interventions de l'état. Des modes de gouvernance alternatifs fondés sur l'action collective à l'éc...
In the context of global warming and environmental pressure, food chains must adapt to new production conditions while satisfying the evolving consumer demand. Livestock production is known for its negative ecological footprint, bringing forward the question of a possible transition towards more plant-based diets. Citizens' demand evolves at differ...
Data on individual decisions concerning food diet changes towards plant-based diets and their determinants : (1) 145 arguments from the web and grey literature (in English), (2) results of an online survey with 1714 respondants in France (in French), (3) 20 in-depth biographic interviews (1 in English, 19 in French). (2018)
Agent-based simulation has been extensively used to study opinion dynamics. However, the vast majority of the existing models have been limited to extremely abstract and simplified representations of the diffusion process, which impairs the realism of the simulations and disables the understanding of the reasons for the shift of an actor's opinion....
ABSTRACT: Mountain systems are particularly vulnerable due to natural climate harshness, exposure to natural risks, as well as socio-economic changes. Traditionally, inhabitants of these systems tend to rely on a diversified portfolio of activities to spread the exposure to risks. Climate and other global changes to come add another level of diffic...
The concept of agroecological transition revives debates on how to deal with complexity and uncertainty. While the adaptive approach and its “adjust along the way” principle have been adopted as a relevant general framework to deal with partially irreducible uncertainty, the different approaches to the definition and management of uncertainty are r...
Transitioning towards agroecology involves the integration of biodiversity based ecosystem services into farming systems: for example, relying on biological pest control rather than pesticides. One promising approach for pest control relies on the conservation of semi-natural habitats at the landscape scale to encourage natural enemies of insect pe...
Habitat management is increasingly considered as a promising approach to favor the ecosystem service of biological control by enhancing natural enemies. However, habitat management, whether at local or landscape scale, remains very uncertain for farmers. Interactions between ecological processes and agricultural practices are indeed uncertain and s...
A second nutrition transition seems to be emerging towards more plant-based diets, curbing meat consumption in developed countries at the beginning of the 21st century. This shift suggests that rational arguments tend to influence an increasing number of individuals to adopt vegetarian diets. This paper aims to understand and simulate the impact of...
Un débat vif, parfois très polarisé, se joue sur la consommation de produits animaux dans les pays développés. Cet article propose de modéliser une partie de la diversité d'arguments en jeu à partir d'un échantillon provenant principalement d'internet, mais aussi de journaux et de présentations scientifiques. On peut notamment observer la place dom...
A second nutrition transition seems to emerge towards more plant-based diets, curving meat consumption in developed countries in the beginning of the XXI century. This shift suggests that logical arguments tend to influence more and more individuals towards vegetarian diets. This paper proposes a methodology to model a network of arguments around v...
The governance of ecosystem services (ES) has been predominantly thought of in terms of market or state-based instruments. Comparatively, collective action mechanisms have rarely been considered. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a conceptual framework that brings together ES, social interdependencies, and collective action thinking. We us...
The concept of agroecological transition revives debates on how to deal with complexity and uncertainty. While the adaptive approach and its “adjust along the way” principle have been adopted as a relevant general framework to deal with partially irreducible uncertainty, the different approaches to the definition and management of uncertainty are r...
Le commerce équitable propose une proposition alternative au commerce en suggérant en creux l’existence d’un commerce inéquitable. Il y aurait donc une rupture évidente entre un commerce source d’inéquités et celui qui tenterait de s’en soustraire. Cette simplicité n’est qu’apparente car le terme ne spécifie en rien le type de relations commerciale...
Participatory modelling must often deal with the challenge of ambiguity when diverse stakeholders do not share a common understanding of the problem and measures for its solution. In this paper, we propose a framework and a methodology to elicit ambiguities among different stakeholders by using a participatory Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) modellin...
L’agroécologie implique la conception de systèmes agricoles intégrant autant que possible les services écosystémiques. Aux produits chimiques souvent employés contre les ravageurs de cultures peut être privilégié la régulation par leurs ennemis naturels. Des résultats en écologie indiquent que des paysages agricoles dont la composition est riche en...
Pesticide reduction is a key current challenge. Scientific findings in landscape ecology suggest that complex landscapes favor insect pest biological control by conservation of natural enemy habitats. A potential agro-ecological innovation is to conserve or engineer such complex landscapes to reduce pesticide use. However, whereas the relevant reso...
Scientific findings in landscape ecology suggest that a patchy landscape with a high proportion of semi-natural elements favors insect pest biological control by conservation of natural enemies’ habitats. However, little is known about how farmers perceive landscape effect on natural enemies and pests and if they might be interested in integrating...
Le prospectiviste américain Jeremy Rifkin continue de creuser le sillon d’un avenir où les nouvelles technologies alimentent une réorganisation, voire un déclin, du capitalisme. Avec notamment le partage libre d’information sur internet, les réseaux d’énergie décentralisés (voir La troisième révolution industrielle, Babel, 2013) et l’impression 3D,...
Une voie prometteuse en agroécologie est la prise en compte de l’influence des mosaïques paysagères dans les processus de régulation des ravageurs. Ce potentiel, situé à un niveau d’organisation qui dépasse celui de l’exploitation, nécessite une coordination entre différents acteurs du territoire. En effet, particulièrement lorsqu’il s’agit de bioa...
The recent "boom of Quinoa" triggered doubts about the economic and sustainability of Fairtrade and Organic Quinoa. This study, ordered by Max Havelaar France, is about updating Fairtrade economic tools (FTMP and FTP) which have not been reviewed for seven years. Proposals in this direction are made. Moreover, one of the objective was to assess the...
The Oasis of Chira Valley is home of small farmers who inherited small plots of land thanks to the completion of the Peruvian Agrarian reform. In the late 90's, the valley attracted both organic banana exportation and Fairtrade NGOs. This report presents the agrarian dynamics and the evolution of main production systems in the area of farmer commun...
Questions
Questions (13)
From interviews I conducted, it seems that role models may play a major role in behavioral change but I am hardly finding scientific papers that would have tested or studied this effect. I am probably looking at the wrong place,, do you know some key papers on this topic to put me on tracks?
Many participatory processes need to come to a form of agreement or consensus as a base to work together or take a decision over an issue. We're interested to know the diversity of methods out there to achieved such objective.
Thanks in advance for your ideas!
Participatory research requires, as much as possible, to co-construct the research question with stakeholders. However, in practice, the question mostly comes originally from external instutions (research, public institutions, companies, NOGs, etc.). Is there some developped approach to elaborate a research question in this context? How to blend the project launcher problematic with local stakeholder ones? Do you know some methodologies which covered this challenge?
I am looking for references of games and simulations conducted in mountain areas. We would like to review these cases. If you have such a case yourself or know some references, do not hesitate to post here. Thanks!
There is potentially a huge benefit in building generic models, especially in participatory modelling which are often site specific and resource consuming (time of stakeholders in particular).
However, we found only few papers which describe their approach to build generic models. Do you know any methodology or case studies where they describe how they built a generic model?
Personal experience, literature advice are very welcome!
In many arenas, strong statements are made about the consequences of climate change. I often hear even that climate change could even end humanity. I wonder what were the best pieces of science that could back such doomed future for humanity?
Thanks in advance for your input.
It seems that many choices are torned between the drive for pleasure and our reasoning.
For example, we may know that taking a plane will produced Co2 and contribute to climate change but we also tend to take plane anyway out of the pleasure we get from it (fast travel or reaching remote places). Similar behaviour can be seen about animal products consumption. A lot of indivduals in the west actually want to cut some of their consumption of animal products but in reality the pleasure individual get from their consumption is frequently taking over.
I would like to know what kind of studies/books are out these about this phenomenon. Thanks in advance for your help!
I have found the spiral dynamics value systems model (Beck & Cowan 2005) an interesting heuristic model but I was struggling to find scientific evidence for its validity. [e.g. The Inglehart-Welzel model (Inglehart & Wezel 2010) from traditional to secular/rational societies seems to correlate the blue to orange value system shift in spiral dynamics but no formal connection has been establised.]
Would you know studies which would back the spiral dynamics model?
If not, would you know better models of human value systems and how they evolve?
I am studying the emergence of new social norms in food consumption. New social norms seems to be emergent in industrialized countries (vegetarianism, vegan). How would you measure in text data (newspaper, scientific papers, grey literature, etc) such emergence?
